A long-lens snapper outside Downing Street this week miraculously decoded one of the great political mysteries of our age: Brexit, we find out, doesn’t actually mean Brexit, as stated by countless lugubrious members of the Tory cabinet. What it really means, according to a note clutched in the hand of a top Tory aid is “Canada-plus”. The government might not have an actual plan for Brexit but at the very least it has been brainstorming the heck out of what form an actual plan might take. And the plan, so far, is, um … Canada!
It’s a good brand, after all. Stable economy, diverse population, fanciable young prime minister. “Yes, yes, YES,” you can just imagine the chancellor, Philip Hammond, saying in a closed-door meeting (diary heading: Brexit again WTF???). “We’ll just rebrand ourselves as the new Canada. A rainier, older, rattier, more repressed and alcoholic Canada. That’ll give them their country back.”
As the new Canada, Britain’s template for the Brexit negotiations, one must assume, will be Ceta – the recently signed Canada-EU Trade Agreement: an agreement no one, apart from a single, depressed French-Canadian bureaucrat living in the bowels of Ottawa’s trade ministry, has ever read in its entirety.
No matter. Because what a relief that it’s finally all settled. Brexit will be exactly like Ceta except with some extra-special bonus stuff thrown in. Like an international trade version of friends with benefits. Or cake with sprinkles. Cake that (according to the aforementioned note) Britain might have, while eating it too – if cake were access to the European single market and the act of eating akin to slamming shut borders.
But enough with the pesky details – it wasn’t the details that got you Brits Brexit in the first place, was it? No, it was the slogans. And so Brexit, going forward, will be rebranded Project Maple Leaf. It’s about the beavers and polar bears now; pure driven snow and freshwater lakes. The Brexit team are on message. David Davis has called the Canadian agreement “a perfect starting point”, and Boris Johnson urged Britons during the EU referendum campaign to “ignore the pessimists and merchants of doom” since, after all, “we can be like Canada”. C’mon chaps, just think of the skiing.
As a Canadian journalist based in the UK I am obviously delighted with this turn of events – I miss my homeland and would love it if my local pub had Moosehead lager on draft. But hey, Britons, before you all rush out and buy a Canada Goose parka, you might pause to ask: what exactly is Ceta?
In essence, it’s a multilateral trade agreement that reduces tariffs and customs barriers between the EU and Canada. It took 22 tortuous and colossally expensive years, involving “nonstop negotiations” between Brussels and Ottawa, according to its architect, Roy MacLaren – the former minister of trade and Canadian high commissioner to Britain.
In a recent piece for Canada’s Globe and Mail, MacLaren celebrated the greatest single achievement of his political legacy by stating that Ceta “has yet to run the gauntlet of a complex and, in some respects, hazardous final approval process, but its early provisional implementation will carry the promise that there is, as in other trade agreements, no relish to reverse provisional application”. (In case you were wondering, that’s the sound of a Canadian politician howling in victory while repeatedly punching the air.)
But perhaps the question Britain should really be asking at the moment is this: what is Ceta not? I’ll tell you what it isn’t, and that’s an acrimonious divorce settlement after 40 years of marriage, countless children and deep economic entanglement. That’s what Britain needs to negotiate.
And if you don’t believe me, take it from Jason Langrish, executive director of the Canada Europe Roundtable for Business – the organisation responsible for Ceta. Will the “Canada-plus” model work for the UK? No, says Langrish, who has advised the UK government in what he calls “their efforts to find a silver lining to this nightmare that they have unleashed on Britain. They continue to search for a trade unicorn that will solve all.”
The reason? “It’s complicated,” he told me. “And the complexity is not understood by those in the government who have no experience with trade negotiations.”
So Team Brexit, here is my advice: before you start making vast, sweeping comparisons between Canada and the UK regarding trade deals with the EU, consider the following. The EU likes Canada. We share certain cherished values, like socialised medicine, hot chocolate and ice hockey. Our relationship is a happy, long and stable one. And it still took over 20 agonising years to negotiate a deal. How long do you think it’s going to take if the EU is an angry ex-spouse who is still fuming at you for walking out? I can’t give you an exact answer, but I speak for all Canadians when I wish Britain luck on its path to “independence”.
As the late, great Canadian singer Leonard Cohen once sang: “Like a bird on a wire, like a drunk in the midnight choir / I have tried in my way to be free.” Good luck with that, chaps.
